Biscuit and bread maker Britannia remains bullish on building its presence in the Hindi heartland with the company already posting 42% growth in Uttar Pradesh. “Our agenda for Hindi states is going well. In Uttar Pradesh, we got a growth of 42%. Other Hindi speaking states have also done well,” Varun Berry, managing director, Britannia, said at a press conference on Monday. The maker of Britannia cookies and biscuits has been trying to push its biscuits category and has an eye on the local markets. It has also come up with a strategy to woo customers from the Hindi speaking belt which consists of states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bihar.
Called ‘Many Indias’, the strategy is to meet the unique needs of different regions in India. “Large brands like Good Day, Milk Bikis and Marie Gold have employed localized strategies to meet the unique needs of different markets and fight local players. A focused and localized strategy has been adopted for the Hindi Heartland states as well,” brokerage and research firm Motilal Oswal said in a June report, citing management discussions.
Speaking about the company’s stellar performance despite the coronavirus lockdown, Varun Berry said that the company had a very good growth. “Despite tough conditions faced due to the pandemic, Britannia’s team worked on building business as well as issues such as migrant labour,” he told reporters. He also said that the company deployed a 20:80 rule, under which it produced lesser SKUs but made them efficiently. The same has also helped the FMCG giant to ramp up its capacity even after the lockdown disrupted production and also caused major loss of migrant workers. Britannia focussed on building its high-margin and premium portfolio to tide over the crisis, Varun Berry said. Britannia reported over two-fold increase in profits in the first quarter of current financial year.
